How Much Does a ShelfGenie Franchise Owner Make?

Officially, Item 19 measures sales activity and gross margin—not annual owner earnings. For the 2025 reporting period, the disclosure reports $28,873,113 of Gross Sales across 234 territories, equal to $123,918.94 per territory, and a 77.12% Gross Margin after the FDD-defined Cost of Goods Sold. The applicable population is franchised ShelfGenie territories, not company-operated outlets.

The distinction matters because ShelfGenie’s Cost of Goods Sold covers Core Products and specified freight, while the FDD says it excludes several other costs, including miscellaneous installation supplies, some shipping and delivery charges, insurance, and taxes connected with product purchases. Gross Margin therefore precedes royalties, advertising, software, call-center charges, payroll, vehicles, insurance, administration, and owner or manager compensation. Source: ShelfGenie 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 69–77.

Gross Sales

Customer revenue under the FDD definition. It is the top line and cannot be treated as an owner salary or distribution.

Gross Margin

Gross Sales less the source-defined Cost of Goods Sold. It is not Operating Profit, EBITDA, Net Income, or owner benefit.

Estimated owner-operator benefit

Modeled cash after listed operating costs and recurring franchise fees, before owner compensation, personal income taxes, interest, depreciation, capital expenditures, and debt principal.

Manager-run residual

Estimated owner-operator benefit less a paid-manager wage proxy. The model excludes employer benefits and payroll burden, so actual manager cost may be higher.

The model produces about $7,000, $35,000, and $84,000 of annual owner-operator benefit in the Conservative, Base, and Upside scenarios. These are estimated, labor-inclusive results for a mature standard Executive package of two approximately 125,000-household territories, using 2025 Item 19 evidence and post-year-two recurring obligations.

Which assumptions drive the three scenarios?

The scenarios combine a FDD-derived revenue distribution with official recurring fees and clearly labeled expense assumptions. They apply to the 2025 reporting evidence and a mature two-territory Executive structure; they are not probabilities or franchisor forecasts.

• Revenue: $129,936, $183,504, and $272,937 for two territories, derived by doubling the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile of the 43 market-row Gross Sales per Territory observations disclosed in Item 19.
• Gross Margin: 77.12% in every scenario, the 2025 FDD system figure. Manufacturing rebates are excluded because eligibility and amounts vary.
• License Fee: the FDD’s progressive 5%–7% rate schedule, subject to the mature Executive minimum of $400 per month per territory. The Conservative scenario uses the $9,600 two-territory annual minimum.
• Marketing: 2% MAP Fee plus $40,000 Minimum Local Marketing Spending. At each modeled revenue level, 8% of prior-year sales is below the post-year-two $40,000 floor.
• Required software: $7,092 annually, based on one Business Management Software subscription, the listed Technology Package, one Cadsoft license, and Closet Pro. Optional QuickBooks and future increases are excluded.
• Call center: $4,800 annual fixed cost, using a $400 monthly midpoint within the FDD’s $349.99–$449.99 range, plus $30 for an assumed 65% of modeled appointments. The 65% share is an editorial assumption because Item 19 does not disclose how many appointments were call-center booked.
• Other operating expenses: 22%, 20%, and 18% of revenue for field labor, payroll burden, vehicles, insurance, non-COGS installation materials, delivery, professional fees, warranty work, and administration. These are explicit scenario assumptions, not ShelfGenie disclosures.

The revenue range is derived from the current FDD’s market-by-market territory table, not from an outside industry average. Item 19 discloses 43 market rows that reconcile to 234 territories. The calculation takes the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile of those market-row Gross Sales per Territory figures, using linear interpolation, then doubles each value for the standard two-territory Executive offer.

Compatibility limitation: the FDD reports each market’s total Gross Sales divided by its number of territories. Doubling a per-territory observation assumes two similarly productive territories and does not capture shared overhead, territory age, or market-specific concentration. The FDD’s official weighted system figure of $123,918.94 per territory is higher than the independently calculated market-row median because larger markets receive more weight in the official average.

In the Base scenario, $183,504 of modeled Gross Sales becomes about $35,035 of owner-operator benefit after the listed deductions. This is a fully reconciled analytical bridge for a mature two-territory Executive business; only Gross Margin and recurring franchise obligations are official FDD facts, while call-center usage and other operating expenses are assumptions.

The bridge excludes manufacturing rebates because the FDD says rebates begin only after a quarterly purchase threshold and the disclosed amounts are uneven. It also excludes interest, depreciation, capital expenditures, debt principal, and personal income taxes. Any owner draw above the modeled benefit would reduce working capital or require financing; any retained earnings would reduce the cash distributed to the owner.

Owner involvement changes the result because the FDD generally requires direct owner performance or supervision unless ShelfGenie consents to a trained manager. The owner-operator scenarios omit a paid general manager and therefore combine residual business economics with compensation for work performed by the owner. This is an estimated labor-inclusive benefit, not passive profit.

For the manager-run comparison, the model uses the May 2025 national median hourly wage of $50.85 for General and Operations Managers, annualized to $105,768. The BLS OEWS program overview notes that its estimates cover wage-and-salary workers and exclude self-employed owners. The proxy is broad, varies by geography, and does not include employer-paid benefits or payroll taxes. A local compensation quote is therefore more decision-useful than the national figure.

Uncertainty is substantial, so the evidence confidence is Limited. The revenue and Gross Margin anchors are official 2025 ShelfGenie data, but Item 19 does not disclose a complete operating statement or owner compensation. The $7,000–$84,000 range is therefore sensitive to expenses the FDD does not quantify for the reporting cohort.

• Population exclusions: Item 19 excludes seven franchisees operating 35 businesses that lacked at least one business open for the full reporting period, and it excludes eight businesses that closed during 2025. Excluding incomplete-year and closed businesses can make the reported cohort less representative of a new buyer’s early experience.
• Accounting consistency: franchisees supplied the Item 19 data through system software and were not required to use generally accepted accounting principles.
• Market concentration: one disclosed market had Gross Sales per Territory of $534,274.50, while the low was $24,041.50. The distribution is wide and market rows contain one to 16 territories.
• Fixed marketing burden: the mature $40,000 local-marketing floor absorbs about 31% of Conservative revenue, 22% of Base revenue, and 15% of Upside revenue before the separate 2% MAP Fee.
• Missing expense detail: the FDD does not publish reporting-cohort labor, vehicle, insurance, delivery, office, warranty, professional-fee, or manager costs.
• Ramp-up mismatch: the model is for a mature year. Year-one and year-two marketing minimums are lower, but new businesses may have lower sales, startup inefficiencies, and additional working-capital needs.
• System movement: Item 20 reports 262 franchised outlets at year-end 2025, a net increase of one during the year. Outlet counts alone do not establish profitability or owner income.

The FDD’s official warning is decisive: some franchisees achieved the reported sales, individual results may differ, and there is no assurance a buyer will earn as much. The FTC also advises buyers to scrutinize financial performance representations and consult independent professionals; see its franchise calculating and consulting guidance.

A buyer should replace every major scenario assumption with actual evidence from ShelfGenie substantiation, current franchisees, and local cost quotes. The verification should focus on mature two-territory Executive operators comparable in market size, territory age, and owner role.

• Request Item 19 written substantiation and reconcile the market rows, territory counts, Gross Sales, Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Margin, and rebates.
• Ask current franchisees for annual designer and installer payroll, payroll burden, vehicle, insurance, delivery, supplies, warranty, software, call-center, and local-advertising costs.
• Separate owner salary, draws, distributions, retained earnings, and business profit in every interview. Ask how many hours the owner works and which paid role the owner replaces.
• Confirm the exact License Fee tier calculation, minimum fee, MAP Fee, local-marketing requirement, Local Marketing Group contribution, software licenses, and booked-appointment volume for the proposed territories.
• Ask whether the franchisor would consent to manager supervision under Item 15, then obtain a local wage-and-benefit quote rather than relying on a national proxy.
• Compare mature and ramp-up cohorts, including operators that closed, transferred, terminated, or did not renew. Item 20 and the current/former franchisee exhibits provide the relevant contact population.
• Model interest and principal separately using the buyer’s actual financing terms. Do not treat pre-tax operating benefit as after-tax take-home pay.

The strongest defensible range is approximately $7,000 to $84,000 of estimated annual owner-operator benefit for a mature, standard two-territory Executive business. It is scenario-based, not an official ShelfGenie owner-earnings disclosure. The dominant driver is Gross Sales per Territory relative to the fixed $40,000 mature local-marketing floor and the labor required to design, sell, install, and manage the operation.

The largest unresolved uncertainty is the missing post-COGS operating-expense profile for comparable franchisees. A buyer should verify Item 19 substantiation, obtain actual P&Ls from comparable franchisee interviews where available, separate owner labor from residual profit, and test the proposed territories under the buyer’s real labor, marketing, vehicle, insurance, and financing costs before treating any amount as distributable owner income.